


A Friend In Deed

by TomyrisDarkwarden



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 18:01:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14574534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TomyrisDarkwarden/pseuds/TomyrisDarkwarden
Summary: Description: Genji needs some backup and there’s only one man suited to the job. But the last few years have weighed on heavily on Jesse McCree.





	A Friend In Deed

**Author's Note:**

> A Jesse and Genji friendship fic. Could lead into either McHanzo, McGenji, or neither. I may expand on this later, but I doubt it.  
> I have a couple of others going with variations on the same premise. (Though one could be said to lead into the other.)

Something just felt off.  
Jesse McCree looked warily around without taking his hand off the motel room door.  
A September storm deep in the heart of Texas kept most of the other residents behind their locked doors.  
He eased Peacekeeper from the holster under his raincoat and turned the knob.  
The green glowing cyborg perched on his bed held his hands up in a show of peace.   
“Yeah. Sorry. I should have expected that.”  
McCree let out the breath he had been holding, but kept his weapon trained.   
“You can’t scare a man like that, Genji!”  
Genji chuckled.  
That was a new sound.  
In fact Genji apologizing was new.  
McCree sat in stunned silence.  
“Um…. Jesse? Are you going to lower the gun?”  
McCree knew Genji could see the hesitation in his face. A few years ago he would have lowered the gun in a heartbeat for a fellow former Blackwatch agent.  
Particularly Genji.  
But recently…  
“Can’t. Too many if us have jumped ship.”  
“What?”  
Slowly and seriously Genji reached behind his head. McCree gauntleted peacekeeper with his free hand and tried to suppress the panic that rose in the back of his throat.  
Genji seemed to understand, however, because he paused and began to move even slower, pressing the switches at the base of his skull that released the faceplate of his helmet.  
Glacially he removed the whole thing.  
McCree stared for a second, not because of Genji's scarred visage, per say, but because his hair was a startling neon green, a color McCree hadn’t seen Genji wear since before the fight that had rendered him mostly machine. Even then he had only seen it in old surveillance photos.  
And also because the naked concern seemed out of character for the ninja he had served Blackwatch with, so full of pain, anger, and betrayal. More concerned with his revenge than much anything else. Who even on his good days refused to forget the injustice he had suffered at the hands of his family.  
“Tell me what happened.”  
McCree licked his lips nervously and the furrow of worry between Genji's eyebrows deepened.  
“Hypertrain in Houston…”  
Genji cocked his head to the side.  
“The one you robbed?”  
Irritation ran across McCree’sface.  
“I didn’t rob it! I was set up! By Blackwatch…”  
Genji paused.  
“Jesse…. Blackwatch is disbanded. Same as Overwatch.”  
McCree huffed.  
“I’m not paranoid, Genji! About 2 years before you were brought on I actually did rob a train for Blackwatch. I established the rules. It was a cargo train, not a passenger, but we wrote protocol for that too. The guys who robbed this train. They wore Talon uniforms, but they used Blackwatch tactics. My tactics. They knew who I was. They were Blackwatch operatives turned Talon.”  
Genji seemed to turn this over in his head and not like what he was coming up with.  
“Did you get Winston's message?”  
McCree licked his lips again lowering the gun but not holstering it.  
“I did. I ain’t going back.”  
“Jesse, they need you.”  
“1, they don’t need a known criminal with a bounty the size of Siberia on his head. It’s bad for the image. 2, You know what it took for me to walk away last time, I ain’t putting myself through that again. 3, Winston and Lena are outta their damn gourds if they think they’re up to tangling with Talon. ‘Sides, I been doin' my bit. You see that thing about the Ramen shop? On your home turf by the way. You’re welcome.”  
Genji smiled and shook his head.  
“You know all of those are exactly why they need you.”  
“You know I lead with the whole “wanted criminal” thing for a reason.” Jesse deadpanned and Genji rolled his eyes.  
“You have spent most of your life in Overwatch, the deepest darkest parts of Overwatch. What happens when Winston, like Reyes, realizes that Talon doesn’t play by the rules. If you could go back and prevent Venice, how would you do it? How do you think Winston would do it? Would you let him face such a thing alone?”  
McCree huffed again.  
Genji had a point.  
“Why don’t you go back if you’re so keen on somebody Blackwatch keeping an eye on those kids?”  
“1, I was a part of Overwatch for about 4 years where you were there for nearly 15. You have experience that I do not even have. And 2, I do plan on going back. But I have things I must attend to first.”  
McCree rolled his eyes and finally slipped his gun into the holster.  
“What, did you take on a little ninja- squire?”  
Genji grinned.  
“The opposite, in fact. I have a teacher. A former shambali who has helped me on the path to peace and harmony. But no. That is not it.   
Jesse, I found him.”  
McCree’s jaw dropped.  
“You finally found him. No, wait. You can’t tell me that you have both found inner peace ‘r whatever, and engaged your revenge plan in the same damn breath.”  
Genji chuckled again.  
“I have not engaged my old revenge plan. It is interesting, though, that as soon as I choose to let go of my hate; to, perhaps, forgive Hanzo for the choices he made, that the universe chooses to reveal him to me.”  
McCree ran a hand through his hair.  
“Shit ain’t right…” he mumbled and sighed.  
“So I’m assuming you’re here cause you want a hand?”  
Genji smiled and something pulled in Mcree's chest. Like a spark of hope igniting. Hope he didn’t even realize he’d lost.  
McCree flopped himself down in a chair, feeling lighter than he had in years.  
“How can I help?” He tried to sound put upon but the way Genji's grin widened impossibly told him it didn’t work.  
“I got a tip. Apparently he breaks into Shimada castle once a year, every year.”  
McCree's eyebrows drew in confusion.  
“Man breaks into his own castle?”  
Genji took a deep breath. Like he was steadying himself.  
“Hanzo is no longer the Kumicho.”  
“He got ousted?”  
“He left.”  
“Why? When?”  
Genji stared at him, his eyes expressive as Jesse put it together.   
“No.”  
Genji nodded in confirmation.  
“I could never track him down because he wasn’t there. I got a hold of some old records. The Shimada have an in-house hit on my brother.”  
“What?”  
“The Shimada don’t trust outsiders, and they specialize in assassination anyway.”  
McCree brooded on this for a second.  
Genji continued.  
“Do you know what this means, McCree?”  
“That any intel we got out of Japan after you joined was some kind of bullshit?”  
Genji's expression faltered for a second.  
“Ah. Yes. That is probably true. Jesse. This is why I came to you. I want so badly to believe that Hanzo is sorry for what happened between us. I need someone who sees things the way they are, despite whatever I want, but who is also steady enough to not let me do anything rash.”  
Jesse looked at him with suspicion all over again.  
“I want to believe there is hope for Hanzo. That he regrets that night as much as I do. I don’t want to hate anymore. Jesse, for the first time in my life I feel like myself. When I was young everything revolved around the clan. Not just for Hanzo, but for me as well. He was looking to please our father, and the elders. I was looking to piss them off. So much of my life I wasted in hate, anger, recklessness. And it only got worse after Hanzo tried to kill me. After you left Blackwatch things got worse exponentially. Reyes started to get paranoid. He was convinced that Jack was running things into the ground. He started listening more and more to Moira, and her advice became more and more warped.  
And then Talon kidnapped Amilie. And then Lacroix died. And then Ana died. By the end Jack was holding on by his fingernails. And then,”  
Genji took another deep breath.  
“I was angrier than ever. Angry at you for leaving. At Reyes for getting caught up in his power struggle instead of helping me with my revenge. At Jack for how everything slipped through his fingers.  
I met Master Zenyatta in a slum in Numbani. He saw me for what I was.  
Spoke to me as a person. Not a freak. Not a weapon. I asked him to teach me. I wanted to feel like the person he was talking to.  
So I learned.”  
McCree sat back in the chair and closed his eyes.  
“When did you get so chatty?”  
Genji didn’t dignify that with a response.  
“Alright, Genji. You sold me. You got a plan?”


End file.
